


i'll wait forever

by skai_heda



Series: i'll find you in the darkest corners of my mind [2]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: 7x01 speculation, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, F/M, and beyond, post 6x13
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-10
Updated: 2019-10-10
Packaged: 2020-10-26 10:41:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,372
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20740886
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skai_heda/pseuds/skai_heda
Summary: Neither of them really know where they stand.Clarke read once that, in the aftermath of every tragedy, everyone always somehow ends up exactly where they're supposed to be.But she's not really there at all.set in the universe of 'when the night was full of terror'





	i'll wait forever

**Author's Note:**

> remember that weird piece that i posted a while back  
well this is sort of a continuation, but can be read alone. that entire storyline will be posted in nonchronological order.

The silence welcomes her.

She sees something in him snap when he looks at her, his fingers interlaced with Echo's.

Clarke feels like her head's been submerged underwater—every sound and conversation is muffled, slipping away and bouncing off her.

Despite the softness in Echo's eyes, there's something vaguely territorial in her expression as she steers Bellamy away from everyone else. Clarke recognizes that look—she knows it's been on her own face. _I'll talk to him, I'll handle it, I'll be there for him._

Feeling a little dizzy, Clarke steps away, and walks directly into Murphy.

"Sorry," she blurts, stumbling back, her head really spinning now, because _oh, god, I'm in trouble again—_

It takes her a minute to realize that she isn't a teenager in trouble anymore, but she feels like it. 

"You're fine," he says absentmindedly, his eyeliner smudged. He's staring at Bellamy and Echo, who are sitting close together at a table.

There's an overwhelming sense of loss that starts to build in her chest, an emptiness that pushes and pushes and threatens to make her entire being burst apart. She's vaguely aware of Madi nearby, having a hushed conversation with Gaia, and she feels _dead._

Clarke feels like she never really came back to life since Russell killed her.

Her bottom lip trembles, and she can't do this anymore. She accidentally bumps into Raven as she makes a beeline for the door of the bar, seeking distance, wanting to run. Tired, afraid, empty.

Maybe Bellamy never really saved her at all. Maybe this is all just hell.

* * *

Gabriel says that there's nothing to be done. Clarke can only watch as Bellamy sweeps everything off the table, can only listen as Raven yells indignantly, as Bellamy accuses, his voice cracking under the weight of his sorrow.

She watches. It's all she can do. She can't reach out to him, can't cross the void between them that hadn't existed before Earth had gone up in flames.

* * *

"What's up with you?" Murphy asks.

"I have to leave," she says softly, staring at the shards of the broken mug that had hastily been swept to the corner of the bar. "I can't be here."

"Are you going to go look for Octavia?" Murphy asks, and Clarke hates that she can hear hope in his voice.

Her heart aches at the prospect of saying no, the way Murphy's face will fall, and the way he'll just pick another fight with her.

"How'd you live with it?" she asks finally, turning to face him. "How did you live with the fact that no one at Arkadia wanted you around?"

"That's easy," Murphy says, his features smoothing out into impassiveness as he starts to walk towards the exit of the bar. "I never felt the need to give my life for them in the first place."

* * *

The borders of Sanctum are empty except for her and Gabriel as the two of them watch the suns set.

"I should've just gone into it," Gabriel says. "I should've stayed with Octavia."

"There's no use in trying to think about what should've been done," Clarke says quietly. 

"Did you ever follow that rule?"

She glances at him, at the white patch in his hair that looks almost caramel in the sunset. "What?"

Gabriel shuffles closer to her. "When you were on Earth, when there were no good choices to be made, did you ever tell yourself that afterward? Did you not try and think about what could've been different? How he could've lived, how she could've died, how you could've saved them?"

"It never did me any good," she replies. "The dead stay dead. The living keep living."

"Until they die."

"Until they die," Clarke agrees.

"You aren't a fan of hypotheticals, are you?" Gabriel asks with a sad smile.

"We'd be dead without hypotheticals," she scowls.

"Not planning. Just imagining," he clarifies. 

"Imagining?"

"Imagining that everyone didn't hate you. Imagining that life was easy. Good. You don't like thinking about that."

"Because it's _impossible."_

Gabriel stares at the ground. "I wish things were better for you, Clarke."

He leaves her staring blankly at the fields of crops and flowers as the sky starts to darken.

* * *

"How is he?" Clarke asks conversationally.

"Grieving," Echo says, a little shortly. "He's pushed me away."

"I'm sorry to hear that," Clarke replies, and it's genuine.

Clarke knows how it feels to be pushed away by someone she loves.

"I feel like I'm not what he needs anymore," Echo says, staring blankly into her drink.

"Hey," Clarke murmurs, touching her shoulder. "You are. He loves you. You're his—"

"I'm his what?" Echo asks after Clarke stays silent for a few seconds.

"Family," she says finally. "You're family."

* * *

"When will you come back?" Madi asks, her fingers sweeping over Clarke's knuckles.

"Soon," she lies.

* * *

"Where the hell are you going?"

Clarke adjusts the strap of her backpack before turning to face Raven, who stands next to Shaw's grave.

"I'm going to go find Octavia," she says. "I'm bringing her back."

"Octavia's dead."

"You wish she was."

There's an awkward silence as Clarke watches Raven struggle to find a way to respond to that.

"You can tell the others I left if you want," Clarke mutters, turning away. 

"Are you going to come back?" Raven asks haltingly.

"I don't know," she answers truthfully. 

Raven glances at Shaw's name and then back at her. "Bring her back."

Clarke nods, and that's how she says goodbye to Sanctum.

* * *

Clarke's made sure that she's gathered enough pieces of the story to actually do anything—she knows that Hope disappeared soon after Octavia, and that they had been looking to find the Anomaly stone.

With the remnants of Josephine's memory that she had kept for herself, it doesn't take Clarke long to find Gabriel's place.

She sits down on the table where Bellamy had revived her as she drinks some water, thinking, thinking.

Wondering if Raven has told the others yet.

Waiting.

Her fingers dance across the notebooks filled with Gabriel's small, neat handwriting.

"Come on, Octavia," Clarke murmurs to herself. "Give me something to work with."

* * *

**fourteen days later**

* * *

"How's she doing?" Octavia asks softly.

"I think she'll live," Gabriel replies, stroking her thumb.

"I don't know if she'll ever recover from what happened in there, though," she murmurs, leaning against him. Hell, it'll take _me _years to understand what happened—"

"The Ground," Gabriel muses. "Scary place, huh?"

"Scarier in the Anomaly," Octavia admits. "Can you believe that all it took was just one button to destroy... to destroy _him?"_

"The scariest enemies are often the easiest ones to defeat," Gabriel murmurs, planting a kiss against her temple. 

* * *

The waking hours are bad, but sleep is worse.

Sometimes, all she can think about is how green Bellamy's eyes were. How she saw the light even with her eyes screwed shut and her lips against his.

_Not without you._

Bellamy doesn't come to see her. Bellamy never does.

* * *

"Tell me again," Murphy snarls. His fingernails dig into her skin.

"ALIE," she breathes.

"The _whole _thing."

"Sheidheda took him. Bellamy."

_"Before that."_

"I died."

"How many times?"

"Eight."

"How long were you in there, Clarke?" he asks.

"S-six years," she shudders. "I was in the Anomaly for six years."

"Wrong."

She groans and looks down. "Fourteen days."

After a moment of silence, Clarke looks up helpless. "I don't want to do this anymore."

"You have to," Murphy says softly. "You have to face it. You don't know what's real, Clarke."

"Yes, I do," she says sullenly. "I know... I know what's real."

She pauses. "Don't I?"

Murphy doesn't answer.

* * *

**six months later**

* * *

"So?" Raven asks, handing her a glass of water. "The whole thing was about six months ago. How do you feel?"

"Annoyed that you reminded me," Clarke murmurs.

"Sorry," she mutters, but Raven doesn't sound sorry. "But, I'm being serious. How are you?"

"Better. Wish I could say the same about..."

"Yeah," Raven sighs, filling in the gap of silence left as Clarke trails off. "Well, he and Echo, they're... they're working through it together."

"Guess they are," Clarke breathes, downing the water like a shot of alcohol.

"I know you want to be the one."

"What?"

"I know you wanted to be the one to be there for him."

* * *

Bellamy comes back from the Sea Congregation a week later with his hair cut short and his jaw smooth and free of hair, a relaxed smirk plastered to his face. Clarke almost even feels the flicker of annoyance at the sight that was so familiar to her many centuries ago. She almost sees the rebellion brewing in his eyes, his jaw set with the goal to defy her.

It's good, though. At least someone has been able to move on what had happened all those months ago.

Echo's hair is bleached now by the sun, and she's tanner. She seems happier. It makes Clarke's head ache, while her heart swells in the wake of her friends' happiness.

_They're okay._

That should be enough for her.

* * *

**twenty-one days later**

* * *

"Don't you get lonely up here?" Bellamy says from behind her, joining her on the roof.

"Loneliness doesn't bother me, Bellamy," Clarke mutters with a roll of her eyes.

He winces. "Sorry."

"It's okay."

For the first time in forever, the chasm of silence and unspoken words between them makes her squirm.

"I'm not trying to jinx it," he says suddenly. "But I think all of this is over. I think we can just live."

"Yeah, but I'll remember," Clarke murmurs. There's silence as Bellamy evidently searches for something to say, but she turns to face him before he can conjure up the right words. "But you won't. You don't really remember that, at least. What happened."

"I remember a few things," he says, the wind ruffling his hair. "At the very beginning. When he first started to take control of me. I remember you kissing me."

"I was hoping you wouldn't," she mutters.

"Clarke, that kiss... that kiss is what kept me _sane. _The only way I held on to who I was... was because of _that."_

"That's good to hear, Bellamy, but I should've found another way," Clarke says, turning away again. "You—I shouldn't have, Bellamy. You have someone and it's—it's never been like that with us."

"You're telling me you never even thought of us like that?" Bellamy asks, and she scowls.

"I didn't say that."

"Then what, Clarke?"

"What do you want me to say, Bellamy?" she snaps, whirling around and walking towards him. "You want me to say I liked kissing you while knowing you're in love with someone else?"

"I just want to know if you ever felt that way about me," he replies in a small voice, but he doesn't back away.

"You don't want the answer to that question," Clarke breathes, stepping away, suddenly frightened by the lack of space between their bodies.

_"Clarke."_

"I'm serious, Bellamy. You don't want to hear it that way."

"Do you love me?"

"Of course I love you, you're my best friend—"

"Clarke."

"—and you've been through everything with me and—"

_"Clarke."_

"—and I can't live without you and I'm afraid of losing you and you always support me and I _need _you—"

"Are you in love with me?"

Clarke feels her hands curl into fists as she walks past him without answering, a knot of anger and desperation tightening in her chest.

* * *

What comes as the true shock, though, is Echo.

Clarke had mistaken her source of happiness for Bellamy—however, Echo seems sullen around him, the corners of her mouth turned down in a familiar frown. But then she'll catch Clarke staring, and offer her a small smile of assurance.

_They both came back so happy. What the hell is going on?_

Clarke's sketching a machine design for Raven in the workshop when she hears Murphy's, Emori's, and Echo's voices start to blend together into a conversation as they walk past. She doesn't quite understand exactly what they're saying, but she catches _over, _and _Bellamy, _and _not in love. _

The name _Astara _keeps coming up again and again, and whenever it is said in Echo's voice, Clarke can discern the softness in her tone, the loving enunciation of the syllables.

Their voices fade, and Clarke stares blankly at the paper in front of her, nails and screws rattling around her brain.

* * *

"Echo broke up with me," Bellamy sighs, sitting next to her on the castle steps.

"Oh," she says softly.

_"Oh?"_

"I don't know what you want me to say."

"She was in love with someone else."

"Astara," Clarke murmurs.

Bellamy raises his eyebrows. "How'd you know?"

Clarke shrugs. "I don't know."

He sighs softly. "Without a war to fight, we all just turn into messes, don't we?"

"War makes bigger messes of us," Clarke says. "We're lucky to have this be our biggest problem."

"It's not—our biggest problem."

A growl of frustration tears itself out of Clarke's mouth. "Bellamy, I swear to _god, _if you have something to tell me—"

"No, no, no," he says smoothly, putting a hand on her back. "Relax, Clarke. I just—I'm worried about you. That's the problem. You've gone through—so much—and people don't remember that enough."

"Maybe because it doesn't matter."

"It matters to me."

Clarke glances at him, and Bellamy wastes no time leaning forward to peck her gently on the lips.

"Echo wasn't the only one in love with someone else," he says in response to her stunned expression.

* * *

It gets easier.

Impossibly so.

Clarke and Bellamy trade kisses in the dark, in the light, under the suns, under the moon. She remembers everything that happened. 

She remembers.

Grief is not a small illness to be cured—it has worked itself into the corners of Clarke's brain and soul, but it feels less heavier every day. A kiss, a smile, a word, that evens out the pulsing and pounding of restless sadness.

She's always dreamt of the future. A vague, optimistic future now. And the grief and the pain might keep pulling at her, but she'll still dream. For that vague, optimistic future. She'll dream.

She'll wait forever.

**Author's Note:**

> ight imma head out


End file.
